MOOMINS M.C.

Haven't had access to the interweb lately and just sort of got back into work and medical appointments after returning to Melbourne. Hence the lack of blogging activity of late. So no I haven't been taken by a croc or some mad hitchhiker, just been slack. So here are the last few entries for the remainder of the holiday.

Monday 25^th February.

After having breakfast, packing up my camp and wishing my two companions Wally and Jordan the best of luck on their trip, especially with the repaired tyre which was still up this morning, I went down the road to the where the camels were being held. I heard the distant sound of a road train earlier and figured they were going to be loaded up and carted off to Lybia or some place. It’s like selling ice to the Eskimo but apparently Australian wild camels are highly sought after in the middle east. Managed to get a few shots of the lads loading up the camels with my film camera. One particular one just did not want to go into the truck and after spending a good 20-30 minutes zapping it with cattle prods, waving plastic sheets at it and hitting it with plastic pipes, eventually gave up on him. I figured these were cattle folk and clearly had no idea about camel psychology. Not that I claim to know much about it myself, but the camels obviously have completely different mindset to horses, cattle or sheep. I did at one point stop near some wild horses and did that old thing where you ignore them and eventually the most curious / bravest one will come over to investigate and say hello. I really do think these camel wranglers could use a crash course in handling these animals. Interestingly enough the yard was made up of bits of rail road from the old Ghan track. My two companions form the night before also gravitated towards the noisy proceedings and found it just as fascinating as I did.

After that I made my way towards William Creek, a small community sporting an interesting bar, very expensive fuel and not much else really. Not like Maree the day before which had probably one of the oldest mosques in the country, originally built by the Afghan camel drivers who would transport goods across the harsh country before the advent of railways and trucks.

The rest of the Oodnadatta track to the opal mining town of Cooper Pedy was interesting from the nature point of view. Driving through the desert in the Woomera prohibited area used for rocket tests was magic. Later it got really sandy and I had to keep a good speed up to float over the sandy patches as well as the solid bits that were corrugated to hell. Eventually I made it to Cooper Pedy. Unlike the old school, small town feel of Opalton, Copper Pedy is heavily industrialised and the effects can bee seen everywhere. The hills that aren’t being mined have been previously. It has enough of a post apocalyptic look that films like Mad Max 3 and Pitch Black were made here. And of course practically everything here is underground. So tonight I’m actually camping underground. How novel eh? Reason is, it is so hot that everyone tunnels underground to beat the heat.

On the mechanical front, so far Eleanor had been going very well. The tachometer stopped working two days ago and today it miraculously started up again. Also, the cigarette lighter fuse keeps blowing when I plug the fridge in. I’ll have try and rig something to bypass the fuse box tomorrow. Otherwise I might have to move onto the canned food.

Or just go to a supermarket……

Tuesday 26^th February

Camping underground was certainly an experience. Much cooler than the outside, so rather pleasant in that respect. The actual “camp ground” consisted of a few tunnels off which there were3 walled rooms of about 5 by 5 metres. One issue that did arise was the amount of noise carried as an echo, but thankfully the other campers weren’t too rowdy. That evening I was booked to go for a tour of the mine. It was cancelled as there weren’t enough people booked. Had I known that I would have gone to the Breakaways mountain range just out of town for some sunset photography. Instead I went to the local pizza joint for dinner. The morning saw me up before dawn and over to the Breakaways where I did manage to get some nice shots of a lonely tree at the top of a ridge, on film though. I then went to an old school mine that had been restored along with the underground house. Due to the high temperatures in Cooper Pedy most dwellings are underground. Even churches, post office, etc. My overall impression though was that apart from being extremely tourism geared the place looked like one giant rubbish dump. There were piles of dug up earth, holes in the ground, bits of junk, broken cars and all sorts of crap lying everywhere. The intoxicated aborigines and unfriendly miners didn’t help either. After grabbing some lunch I decided tat I wasn’t going to stay another night. Instead I headed for Woomera, an old and still used missile test site.

The drive there was bitumen and not all that interesting. Once more I had numerous willy willies accompanying me along the way. I noticed a dry salt lake off to one side of he road and after spotting some four wheel drive tyre tracks I decided to have a looksie. Unfortunately an elevated railway track stood between the car and the lake. So, I turned around and headed back up the sandy hill. About 20 metres from the road I realised I didn’t have enough speed and got bogged. I got out my army surplus shovel, dug myself out and had a second and successful attempt. A few minutes down the road I spotted another dry salt lake and this time managed to drive onto and out if it ok. Eventually I got to Woomera and set up camp.

Seems the rest of the trip is now just getting home and I felt a bit sad really. The sudden culture shock of Cooper Pedy and its bitumen roads was a far cry from the quiet and lonely nature of the outback. You could drive for hours on end and only see one or two cars. Tomorrow I’ll keep heading towards Melbourne and see where the road takes me.

Wednesday 27^th February

This morning I went for a look around the township of Woomera. The boy inside wanted to check out the history of this fascinating place used by the British, Americans, Europeans, Japanese and of course Australians to test rockets, missiles, and various flying and space thingies. After checking out the outdoor displays in the town centre I entered the museum section. There I happened upon Jack Perry. He runs the show during the day. Having spent time in the army and then being posted in Woomera when with the Federal Police, he certainly knew a bit about the place and its goings on. His vast store of fascinating stories was only touched on in the hour and a half I spent with him. Stories like the Wirraway that crashed in the nearby salt lake around WWII. The bodies of the pilot and navigator were recovered the following day, but the plane had sunk into the salty mud and was only recovered 43 years later. Or the young chap who this year drove his car out to the lake I wanted to get to when I got bogged. He walked out but his car sunk into the middle of the slaty mud lake and is still there. Or the fact that the launch site is now off limits since 3 months ago. There were tours carried out there but now there is testing of something rather secret and noone is allowed out there. Shame for me as I would have loved to have seen some of it. It turned out that Jack and I shared a love of photography and he was quite happy to pose for a couple of portraits. He also informed me that he had just become a great grandfather for the 31^st time and in July is due to become a great great grandfather. He is also the only person I have met who has owned a Vincent Black Shadow, the fastes production motorcycle in it's day and highly sought after by collectors. Ok so he owned it for 3 days nefore his dad made him take back to the bloke who sold it and it was the only bike he ever rode, but what a cycle!!!

After my encounter with Jack I went to the visitor centre and saw the bowling alley the Americans had constructed whilst working out here. The old 50’s rock ‘n’ roll music being piped out of the outside speaker near the general store was a fitting soundtrack. The town looked almost deserted, but you could imagine it in its hey day when it was a bustling and thriving hub of activity with all sorts of defence and scientific personnel and their families all going about their cold war lives, designing and testing a plethora of weapons and aerospace projects. Safe out there in there in the middle of the desert like gibber plains of outback South Australia.

About 1pm I took off back on the highway and back towards ‘supposed’ civilisation. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the road making distance through some rolling but dry farmlands with the odd little town in between. I got to Dublin, a little village about half and hour from Adelaide and set up camp by the beach. It’s seems surreal that the last time I was on the beach was in Townsville, in the humid tropical heat, thousands of miles away. It’s colder here, more windy really and it’s the first time I have had to put something on top of my Tshirt since Tasmania.

Tomorrow I’m heading further south east down the coast into Victoria. Two more days of driving the coast should see me back home. By the time I get back to Melbourne I would have travelled through 6 out of the 8 states and territories, 3 time zones and thousands of kilometres.

Friday 29^th February

I decided yesterday morning that the Victorian coast road can wait for another time, after all it’s only just around the corner really. My friends up the east coast of Australia and the outback was what I’d really wanted to see and the arse end of this trip was all about getting home to my loved ones. So I drove all day against a head wind and got back to Melbourne just in time for the end of peak hour. I feel much more relaxed and comfortable with myself both physically and emotionally. I’ve had some room and time to think about things and feel ready to set some new goals in life and start attaining them. I also discovered I could manage a limping jog when out there in the desert, something I’ve not been able to do for nearly 2 years. I’ve had some really awesome photographic opportunities and met some real characters on this trip. I am a little worried about how the photos have turned out though. I just saw the 4 rolls of film I took in Tassie and quite a number of the shots are over exposed. I just hope I got some decent shots in the 9 rolls I took on the mainland leg of the trip.

Today It’s been a case of unpacking the car and looking at all the things I never used. Things like spare bits for the car, emergency repair pieces and equipment, spare food, spare water, fire extinguishers, etc. Not that I’m complaining! I did get to use the puncture repair kit and air compressor, even if it wasn’t on my own car. Can’t believe I just clocked up almost 12,000 kilometres with a lot of it on some pretty harsh roads and rough country and not one single puncture!!! Glad I got those all terrain tyres before the trip started. Apart form that little incident in Sydney when I discovered the split C.V. joint boot Eleanor has performed fantastically.

When I got back home I discovered a bloke mucking around with my old panel van. Whilst in Cooper Pedy I got a test form Gino saying that the council had put a sticker on it asking me to remove the vehicle or have it towed away and also that someone is interested in buying it. So I told him to go ahead and do the transaction. This bloke was trying to get the car started when I turned up at home, and although it hadn’t run in nearly a year, the old girl reluctantly burst into life. I drove forward a few metres and that was the last time I ever will. So the transition is now complete, from the old Ford panel van to the cross country Subaru.

A bit like me really. I’ve left bits of my old self to the pages of history and am now ready to start writing new chapters.

Try overtaking a 4 trailer road train fuel of fuel?

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